STILL LIFE

Saturday

June 27th 2020

Midnight

Seen on my 'good-night' walk around the block-left without explanation in front of Epiphany church on Second Avenue.

Morning brought rain
Still Hot but sweeter

This tree saves lives

Why our Landlord cut down the one right in front 0f my window, and another to the West is beyond my understanding.
~*~

Sunday
6.28
 
 "In the early hours of this day in 1969, the STONEWALL riots broke out in New York City, marking the beginning of the gay rights movement. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village was a popular hangout for gays, lesbians, and transvestites in the late 1960s. On June 28, police raided the bar on the premise that they were selling alcohol without a liquor license. It was the third raid on a Greenwich Village gay bar in a short period of time, and this time when the cops cleared the bar, the patrons didn't disperse, but milled around outside, hurtling insults and bottles at the police. The officers called for reinforcements and barricaded themselves inside the bar. The riots LASTED FOUR DAYS; they galvanized and unified smaller gay rights movements and led to the radical activism of the 1970s. On the first anniversary of the riots, the first gay pride parades were held in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. In David Carter's book Stonewall (2004), he quotes witness Michael Fader: "We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around - it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that's what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we're going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren't going to go away. And we didn't."
 ~*~

"Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace"

https://youtu.be/rDMuSrZTA6A

A Memory
Gay Pride
2017
https://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2017/06/gay-pride.html 
 ~*~

WARM SATURDAY SOJOURN

Mural seen
from the third Avenue bus near 100th Street

 Noticed while waiting for the 106th Street crosstown

 (what used to be)

 Now is...

 My early Spring visit is just the first of many because these Gardens change their visage every week with the progression of Seasons

The Conservatory Gardens

Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Street is Central Park's six-acre formal garden. It is divided into three smaller gardens, each with a distinct style: Italian, French, and English. The Italianate center garden is composed of a large lawn surrounded by yew hedges and bordered by two exquisite allées of spring-blooming pink and white crabapple trees. A 12-foot high jet fountain plays on the western end of the lawn, backed by tiered hedges and stairs that lead up to a wisteria pergola. On the walkway under the pergola are medallions inscribed with the names of the original 13 states.

 The northern, French-style garden showcases parterres of germander and spectacular seasonal displays of spring tulips, and Korean chrysanthemums in autumn, all within an ellipse of Japanese holly. 

In the center is the charming Three Dancing Maidens fountain by German sculptor, Walter Schott

Pansies at the ready...

 ...some planted.

To the south is the very intimate English-style garden.
There are five mixed borders of trees, shrubs and perennial plants, and five seasonal beds featuring spring bulbs that are followed by annual flower displays. A slope of woodland plants lines the western edge of this garden. At the center is sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh's lovely Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain, a tribute to the author of the children's book, The Secret Garden. The children — a girl and a boy, said to depict Mary and Dickon, the main characters from the classic — stand at one end of a small water lily pool.

 A beautiful curve of hedge

Other plantings include one Daffodil

among the many Narcissus blooms

Lenten rose

Lovely old Willow that had to be topped in the last storm
(Imagine it twice as high)

There are ducks and Geese on the lake

Random scenes

 *

 *

~*~

The Garden's main entrance is through the Vanderbilt Gate, on Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets. This magnificent iron gate, made in Paris in 1894, originally stood before the Vanderbilt mansion at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street.

I left at sundown

Home at 8PM
~*~

LINKS
Magnificent photographs of All the Plants
https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x89c2f61c3c27bd87%3A0xdb3f4fd3118f45ec!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.centralparknyc.org%2Fthings-to-see-and-do%2Fattractions%2Fconservatory-garden.html!5sthe%20Conservatory%20Gardens%20NYC%20-%20Google%20Search&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPLS7-vgw9kSLi5MffNdjqrXaUDtWKiXIk5Q2RQ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy2cDD_7zaAhWmq1kKHYoXCpsQoioIvwEwCg

Conservatory Garden Home

http://www.centralparknyc.org/things-to-see-and-do/attractions/conservatory-garden.html

LAST BITS and BITES

Two More Holiday Greetings

(Liz and Jessie-friend from my writing group and The Barons-friends since High school)

Holiday Corpses

NYC
(Saw the first one on Christmas eve.  More daily since)
Wreathed Stone Lion
NYC
(New York Public Library Main Branch)

Sculpture at Madison Square
NYC
(Polished steel and glass, it immediately became an elaborate 'selfie' location)

Three Boys and a Boom Box
NYC
(Street Dancing across Fourteenth Street)

Flag by Grace Forest
New Mexico
(I re-shot the xerox she sent of a photo she took in her yard)

"The Sheltering Sky"
by Bernardo Bertolucci
(from the novel by Paul Bowles)
"We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."

.

https://youtu.be/XgfnZZlgt6Q

See You Next Year

*

A GENTLE GHOST STORY

THE GHOST GLEN
Story by Michelle Slater

  
Young Yakov always listened to the wind.  It spoke to him.  It spoke

to his friend Anatole the fox as well.  One night he thought he heard it
say "come to the forest", so he put on his boots and cap, remembering

to fix the magic feather in it's headband.  His feather was like a compass.

He could always count on it to turn him in the right direction if he got lost.

Shutting the door, and buttoning the latch he'd made from rope and wood

so it wouldn't blow open while he was gone, he headed off.  Anatole

walked a little way along side him, but then circled back to keep watch.
 

Feather was pointing toward the ghost glen, a place he never
went, since it was supposed to contain the spirits of all the trees
that were cut down for wood.  He felt a bit afraid.  Anatole had
told him that on full moon nights the ghost trees were friendly,
and it was a full moon night. Despite his fear, he set his feet on
the path again, and just kept going until he found them.....tall
shimmering things, they were, and talking amongst themselves
the way leaves talk when the wind blows.  He hid.

 
They seemed happy. Some were laughing. They hadn't even
notice him, so he walked amongst them, ever so quietly.
listening, and he learned many things--things about history, and
things about the movement of stars, and what snow felt like to
them, that their roots connect, and that they are one family that
stretches around the earth underground, but most important of
all, he learned that they did not hate the men who had cut them
down, that they understood why, and had forgiven them, that
each of them had left seeds to grow as soon as they'd heard the
ax fall that very first time.  

Just before dawn, they grew silent, as  one by one birds, and other

forest creatures woke..  With the sun rising, Yakov returned to his hut.

Then, although  he could barely keep his eyes open, he told Anatole

everything he had seen and heard. The little fox was very content

when they  curled into bed together.

From that day on Yakov was changed in the most wonderful way.

He became easier in the world, and  was hardly ever afraid again.

Eventually, he grew into a fine man, and became rather famous for

his  beautiful stone huts, an excellent builder, well known all over his

district. 

He visited the ghost trees often with Anatole, and when he was a

very, very old man, that's where he went to die, into the ghost glen.

It was on another full moon night, he simply lay down amongst them,

and fell into a deep sleep, from which he never woke. Moss and lichen

grew over the spot forming a huge mound.  You can see it there still.  It's a  
peacefull spot.  And, if you are lucky, you will hear the trees sing.


Inspired by Mo Boyles wonderful cloth work and posted with it here on 9.24.2912

STORY FOR CLOTH